Insolation

by Bradlyn Wilson

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  Publisher’s Note:

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are the work of the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is coincidental.

  Solstice Publishing - www.solsticepublishing.com

  Copyright 2017 – Bradlyn Wilson

  Insolation

  By Bradlyn Wilson

  Dedication

  For my parents, who have always encouraged me to chase my dreams.

  Chapter One

  It was darker than humanly imaginable. Stuffy hot air floated around, so humid and thick that it felt as though it could be cut with a knife, like warm butter on a hot day. The black was encapsulating and overwhelming, as though a person was floating and being crushed all at the same time.

  In the dark, her eyes were playing tricks on her. She blinked furiously trying to make sense of her surroundings, to comprehend if she had gone blind or if she was in hell. A pit formed in her stomach as she struggled to digest her predicament. The only thing she could hear was the ringing in her ears that threatened to make her head explode. The quiet was deafening. Uncomfortable. Unimaginable.

  There was a tightness in her chest, as though someone was wrapping their hands around her ribcage and pushing down, trying to shove the air out of her lungs. She tried to take a deep breath, but found herself coughing in the hot air as it poured into her lungs. She started to panic and felt her breath quicken. Her hair and skin was sticky with sweat; she could feel the tiny hairs on her back stuck to the ground she was laying on.

  Calm down, I need to calm down, she thought, unable to stop the panic rushing through her veins. She reached up, hoping for a large empty room. The darkness was growing, consuming.

  She reached an arm up hoping to get a clue of where she was. Her hand hit cold concrete before she could even get her elbow off the ground and her heart sunk. She started to run her hands all around her and soon realized that she was in a jagged and rutted enclosure similar to a coffin. The realization that she was going to suffer a slow and excruciating death as she suffocated and starved, drying up like a warm raisin, slowly sunk in. Tears prickled her eyes. She felt the warm water pour down her temples and clink onto the hard ground.

  Then she did the only thing she could think of. She started to scream, as loud as she could.

  She flailed her hands against the concrete, banging harder and harder until her arms started to get raw. She could feel them stinging as the concrete wore away at her skin. She didn’t stop, though. She kept banging and screaming until she felt the warm flow of blood ooze down her elbows and onto her chest. She started scratching furiously at the rock above her.

  She laid her arms back down, resting for a moment. She tried to see something, straining in the dark but it was no use. There wasn’t a single speck of light for her retinas and lens to latch onto.

  Unable to give up, she dug her nails into the ground and started kicking. Unexpectedly she felt immense pain through her abdomen. Everything froze as visions flew through her head, but she could only make out a feeling: resentment.

  She was terrified as she moved her hand slowly towards the source of the pain. Her fingers trailed over her waist and down towards her groin. Just below her belly button, she felt the warm handle of a knife. She traced her fingers around the blade and realized she had something resembling a chef’s knife lodged straight through her abdomen.

  She let out a bloodcurdling scream.

  She started to feel herself hyperventilating, the blood vessels in her lungs narrowing as the carbon dioxide levels in her body fell. Blood slowly stopped moving to her brain and she felt herself getting lightheaded. She started drifting into a hazy state, filled with dreams that felt like old memories.

  She was certain she was going to die. That’s when the sounds started.

  She started to scream louder.

  Chapter Two

  She was eight and playing in the harsh red sand. She looked up, saw the small grey house, and smiled. They were the only things for miles but that didn’t scare her. Instead, she was excited about being in the middle of the desert.

  She looked up and saw her grandpa rush out of the house. His grey hair stood on ends. His skin was the colour of burnt leather from so many years out in the desert. His round glasses were almost falling off his nose.

  He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the blazing sun. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

  She burnt her eyes looking up to see what her grandpa was studying intently and turned her face back to the dirt. There were small shrubs around her and she looked just in time to see a lizard run across her leg. She smiled at him as he licked his tongue onto her sweaty calf.

  She turned back to her grandfather, suddenly realizing what he was looking at. Half the sky was dark. The sun reflected off the metal and the grooves were clear. It was bigger than anything she had ever seen. Bigger than any city she had ever been to.

  “Hadley, get in the house,” her grandfather yelled, his normally soft drawl harshened by panic, without taking his eyes off the ship.

  Hadley got up and dusted herself off. Her white dress was stained orange.

  She walked towards the house and as she did, her grandpa put a hand on her back and walked into the house with her. He spun her around by the shoulders and knelt in front of her. She looked at the scar that made up the left side of his face; loving it, she always traced the lines when she sat on his lap. But he never let her lift the eye-patch.

  She reached up and put her hand on his cheek. He put his rough hand over hers and smiled.

  “Kiddo, you remember how your mom said that you were going to have to stay here for a while?”

  “Yeah, her and daddy had to go on a trip.” She knew this. He had told her so many times over the last few days. It was as though he thought she was dumb.

  “Did you see that ship?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Your mom and dad are on that ship. And kiddo, they aren’t coming back.”

  She didn’t understand.

  “What?”

  “I’ll explain when you’re older—but they wanted you to know that they loved you very much and if things had been different then you could have gone with them. But they weren’t and so it’s just you and me now.”

  Her grandpa wasn’t making any sense. Her mom and dad always left, but they always came back. Always. They would be back in a few weeks; of that, she was sure.

  She wrinkled up her nose. Her eyes were stinging but she was determined that she wasn’t going to cry.

  Chapter Three

  Hadley screamed with all her might, every ounce of energy she had left going into the piercing scream she was allowing out of her lungs. It was echoing around her like fireworks going off inside her head, but she could hear the rumbling around her and had to hope someone was hearing her. A brief thought that this could be death danced through her brain; she hoped if it was death that it wouldn’t last forever, and that she would have release from this prison.

  She took a deep breath in, pausing to listen, to strain to hear any sign that she might soon be freed.

  “Help,” escaped her lips. The first word she had uttered since waking up in this nightmare.

  She hasn’t expected anyone to hear; it was a soft whisper to ease her pain and frustration.

  “We’re coming, hang on!” someone yelled back.

  A shudder ran through her s
pine as she inhaled another breath of warm hot air. She felt a knot of electricity form in her stomach. She waited patiently, pounding her hands slowly onto the concrete on top of her. She hoped that it would be enough to lead them to her. She had no idea how far underground she was.

  Without warning, light poured over her face. She shut her eyes tightly as her retinas tried to process the sudden influx of sensory action. She squeezed them tighter, feeling pain through her face. She inhaled the cool fresh air, and started sputtering as her lungs adjusted to the increased oxygen around her and tried to exhale the dust particles.

  She braced herself for what and who would be there when she finally opened her eyes.

  “Are you ok?” the same voice as before asked.

  Hadley opened her eyes. She looked up and saw two figures silhouetted against the harsh yellow sun. She blinked, trying to make out their features. They were standing a couple feet over her head and were on top of the jagged rock that surrounded her.

  “I said, are you all right?” the taller figure half shouted down, it was man’s voice. His tone was gruff and strained, as though he had just woken up.

  “I’m not sure,” Hadley replied, unable to think of anything else to say.

  “Can we pull you out?” the female said in a musical voice.

  Hadley ran her hand down her body and felt the knife. She ran her hand across her hip, onto her back, and couldn’t feel the other end sticking out. She figured she had a better chance if she got out of the hole.

  “I think so,” she replied, reaching her hands up as she maneuvered her torso into the short tunnel above her.

  The two people above her reached down, gripped her bleeding arms around her wrists, and pulled. It was almost an instantaneous relief when Hadley was freed from her turbulent tomb and she lay on the ground, watching her hands shake just inches from her face. She tried to pull her eyes away from her cracked and bloody palms; her nails were nothing more than bleeding nubs on the ends of her worn fingers.

  The two others watched her meticulously. They were studying her to see what would happen and figure out if there was anything they could do. Hadley started to rock back and forth.

  The woman looked at the man. “I think she’s in shock.”

  “She’d have to be…” the man countered with a shrug.

  “She was stabbed!” the woman exclaimed.

  “She’ll be all right.”

  Hadley tried desperately to pull herself together. She closed her eyes again and began meticulously calming down what seemed like a nerve at a time. Eventually she exhaled and looked at the people who had saved her.

  “Thanks.” She smiled; it was the only thing she could think to say.

  “No problem,” they said in tune.

  They remained staring at each other in silence for what seemed like an eternity.

  The man grimaced, pushing his perfectly shaped eyebrows close together. His grey eyes studied Hadley. “Who are you?”

  “Hadley Evans, who are you?”

  “Paxton Avery, I go by Pax,” he said with an air of self-worth as though his name should mean something.

  He knelt down slowly, pushing his blond unkempt hair out from in front of his eyes. He gave her a smirk.

  “Nice to meet you Hadley,” Pax smiled as put his hand on her shoulder, “now this is going to hurt…”

  Aggressively, Pax grabbed a hold of the knife handle piercing through Hadley’s stomach and pulled. She glimpsed it slide out from between her abs, and the blood flow from it. Paxton pulled the shirt off his back swiftly and tore off the sleeve; he wadded it up and pressed it against her bleeding stomach. He tore the bottom ring off the shirt and tied it tightly around Hadley’s waist, compressing the wound. This was the first time Hadley realized she wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of non-descript white underwear and bra.

  Then Pax held up the knife, or what was left of it.

  “See, it wasn’t that deep.”

  “How did you know how to do that?" Hadley asked through clenched teeth.

  “Five years in the military as a doctor after high school; I’ve seen my fair share of battle wounds,” he said nonchalantly before a grimace spread over his face.

  The woman stared daggers at Pax, taking a step back. “How do you know that?”

  “Honestly, Vanya I didn’t even know I knew that until it came out of my mouth.”

  “Don’t lie to me Pax; after the last 2 days I thought we were in the same boat.”

  “Vanya, I swear, that’s the only thing I’ve remembered.”

  Hadley watched them go back and forth. Vanya was a thin woman with long flowing red hair. Her eyes struggled to focus and there was an indent on the top of her nose where her glasses should be. She was terrified.

  “I thought I could trust you,” Vanya squealed at him taking a step back.

  “Vanya, calm down, I haven’t lied to you.”

  Hadley moved her arms over herself, trying to cover up her indecently exposed body. She saw the black bruises covering the majority of her body. As she started to relax, the pain began to intensify.

  Hadley had to ask, “What are you talking about? You can’t remember anything…?”

  “Can you?” Vanya asked in horror, her eyes widened and her breath quickened as she panicked.

  Hadley thought for a moment, trying to figure out anything about her life that she knew. She knew that the sky was blue because the particles in the air scatter sunlight as blue light more than red. She knew about research she was undertaking and a thorough knowledge of the planet. However, when it came to herself and her experiences it was as though she was a memory card that been wiped clean.

  “I…I…”

  “Where were you born?” Paxton asked.

  “I don’t know; where were you born?” Hadley countered.

  Vanya piped in, “What do you do?”

  “I have a PhD in Environmental and Evolutionary Sciences; I basically combined the two to see how humans interact with the environment, as well as how they contribute to global warming.”

  “Where did you get that PhD?” Pax quizzed.

  “I…” Hadley paused. “I’m… I’m…”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No…”

  Vanya smiled sadly, “Neither do we…”

  Hadley looked Vanya straight in the eye. “How is that possible?”

  “Have you looked around?” Pax replied.

  She hadn’t, with everything happening right in front of her face she hadn’t taken a second to look at the bigger picture. She looked at the pile of rubble that lay beneath her, the remnants of a building that had long collapsed and she pondered how she had become a part of it. She looked up and saw the building on which they stood was one of many that were disintegrated.

  Some steel structures still held on. The windows had turned into fine powder below their sills. There was no sign of vegetation, grass or trees. It was a crumbling concrete jungle. It seemed as though the three of them were the only people left in a deserted world.

  “So you have no idea what happened here?” Hadley inquired skeptically. Pax and Vanya shook their heads.

  Vanya opened her mouth as though to make a suggestion but decided against it. Instead Pax spoke. “We’ve been wandering around for 2 days. We haven’t found water or food and it’s becoming a problem. I would love to sit around here but we’re headed towards the other end of town in search of anything.”

  A wave of pain rushed through Hadley’s entire body, radiating from her head. She looked at Pax who was waiting for an answer, suddenly her stomach started churning and she vomited on her feet.

  The vomit kept coming and coming. She continued to dry heave until there was less than nothing in her stomach, but her body wouldn’t stop convulsing. Hadley put her head on the warm concrete below the setting sun and waited, either for death or the end of her body’s rejection of the air.

  “We have to find water,” Pax exclaimed, “if we don’t… well it won�
�t be long before the severe dehydration sets in for you Hadley, and the vomiting is making it worse. Vanya, we also can’t go on much longer.”

  Hadley looked at Pax. “I think I’ll die now…,” she whispered beginning to close her eyes. The blood was soaking through the makeshift bandage on her stomach and she was starting to feel lightheaded.

  “Nope. No one is dying today. It’s probably a concussion,” Pax declared as he scooped Hadley up into his arms. She laid her head on his shoulder as she gave up trying to fight.

  The sun was beginning to set and the sky was blazing a fiery combination of reds and golds. The last bit of the day was slowly fading into the jagged horizon. The wind started to shift as they walked off the building they were on. Hadley felt the hairs on her arms stand on end and she began to shiver. Pax held her closer, his warm chest moving up and down beneath her. He was starting to panic a bit but wouldn’t let it show. He knew that would send Vanya off the deep end and he needed their group to stay together. If it was the last thing they did.

  They walked and walked, finding nothing but demolished buildings. It seemed as though it was never going to end. Then, almost suddenly, they got to a bit of the city that looked almost in one piece, even though only a few windows remained.

  They saw a mannequin in a half broken window as they crossed the street and Vanya almost yelled out, thinking it was another survivor. She bit her lip as she realized her mistake and Pax gave her a sympathetic look.

  Then Hadley saw it, the sign lying on the ground; she barely made it out against the glow of the moonlight. She tried to speak but her voice came out as a squeak, her lips were so dry that they were cracking and blood was pooling in the corners. With all the strength she had left she hit Pax’s arm.

  “Huh?” he exhaled alarmed.

  “Serva,” she replied.

  Vanya’s face lit up. “Did you say Serva?”

  Hadley raised a shaking finger towards the sign, and they all saw it. Pax started to walk faster, almost into a run, causing Hadley to bounce up and down in his arms.